1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide color photographic material adapted to direct viewing and a method of processing said material. More particularly, the invention relates to a silver halide color photographic material having improved whiteness and no chance of forming static marks, as well as to a method of processing such a material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The whiteness of the background has an important effect on the image formed in photographic materials for direct viewing. An improved whiteness of the background increases the contrast, color saturation and aesthetic appeal of the image. Several methods have been proposed for increasing the background whiteness. Brightening agents are known as one effective means for increasing the whiteness of silver halide photographic materials. In one conventional method, the brightening agents are contained in one of the solutions employed in color processing, as shown in Japanese Patent Publications Nos. 35240/71, 20975/74 and 25336/75. However, the methods described in these patents are defective in one way or another; they do not provide adequately high brightening effects, or the developing solution used has decreased stability. Therefore, these methods are not adaptive to the recent demand for processing a wide variety of photographic materials at faster speeds.
In another method, the brightening agent is contained within the photographic material per se, as described in Japanese Patent Publications Nos. 21189/71, 27692/73, 10696/74, 28225/76 and 32254/77. The brightening agent used in this manner provides an enhanced intensity of fluorescence, so the whiteness of the unexposed area is improved over that achieved by the first method. However, even this second method has its own defect because of the fact that the brightening agent is incorporated in one of the layers of the photographic material (e.g. subbing layer, emulsion or non-emulsion layers) either alone or in combination with a compound that traps the brightening agent to increase its brightening ability. A typical defect is static marks that develop during the manufacture or processing of photographic materials, for example, when coating respective layers onto the support at high speed, transporting the photographic material through a color printer, or when peeling an adhesive tape from the photographic material before use. The greater the intensity of fluorescence, the greater the chance of the occurrence of static marks, and there is no conventional method to satisfy the two objects at the same time, i.e. increasing the whiteness of the background and preventing the formation of static marks. Static marks are most likely to occur in photographic materials of the type that uses a hydrophobic support such as polyolefin-coated paper.